Kestenberg, J.S. and Kahn, C.Children Surviving Persecution: An International Study of Trauma and Healing. 1998

SHORT ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RECENT BOOKS ON CHILD SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST OF WORLD WAR II:
European focus

Works by Other Researchers

Please note we are developing a bibliography of child survivors of other genocides: Check for updates to our site this spring. Also please send your recommendations for inclusions and/or book reviews to friedmanj@aol.com.

A. Diaries and Magazines – Contemporary accounts by children:

Boas, Jacob, 1996. We are witnesses; The diaries of five teenagers who died. Scholastic Press. ($4) Youth oriented writing.

Holliday, Laurel. 1996, Children of the Holocaust and World War II. Pocket Books. (Diaries from camps, cities and ghettos. Includes diaries from Jewish children, Dutch prison camps children, etc. $13)

Kriskova, Maria. 1995. We are the children just the same: The secret magazine by the Boys at Terezin. Jewish Publication Society. (13-15 year old children write underground magazine, “Vedem” from within Terezin (Czech) preserved by few survivors and new released from Czech. $30)

B. Accounts from children immediately after the war:

Grynberg, Henryk, 1997. Children of Zion. Northwestern University Press. (1943 interviews of Polish children in Palestine, recollecting experiences, before and during the war and in exile in Russia. Chorale presentation rather than single case by case. Note esp. problems when under Sikorski agreement, children were allowed to leave Soviet work camps but as orphans. $16)

Hochberg-Marianska, Maria, ed. Et al. 1996 . The Children Accuse, Britain Books. (Stories collected in Poland from children in 1945. Tell of experiences in forests and bunkers, camps & ghettos and accounts of adults who witnessed children’s experiences. Includes nonjews $55/$16)

C. Accounts written a few years later:

Sliwowska, Wiktoria, 1998 The last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak. N.W. University press. (Jewish children in Poland. Describes wide variety of experiences, some good. Includes pre and post war experiences, and some rescuers stories)

D. Accounts written as an adult:

Interviews at Child Development Research project: International Study of Persecution of Children and the Gratz college collection.

Hermand, Jost. 1997. A Hitler Youth in Poland: The Nazi children’s evacuation program during World War II. Northwestern University press. $16. Author recalls his experiences being sent to several different Nazi youth training camps where he often endured harsh treatment but sometimes nurturing. Description of his experiences and those of others.

Levendel, Isaac. 1999 Not the Germans Alone: A son’s search for the truth of Vichy. Northwestern University. Recollections about his boyhood in France, loss of parents, and being taken in by a peasant family.

Nieuwsman, Milton. 1998. Kinderlager: An oral history of young Holocaust survivors. Holliday House. Three adults recall their childhood in Auschwitz and their return to Poland and anti-semitism after the war.

E. Varied Sources:

Baumel, Judith. 1990. Unfulfilled Promise: Rescue and resettlement of Jewish refugee children in the U.S. 1934-45. Story of organizations that helped settle Jewish children sent abroad by their German Jewish families and the problems encountered by these organizations.

Gilbert, Martin. 1998. The Boys: The untold story of 732 concentration camp survivors. (Boys and some girls under the age of 16 give accounts. Author interweaves interviews, letters, of girls and boys who later were sent to Britain).

Klarsfeld, Serge. 1996. The French Children of the Holocaust: A memorial. This is a 2000 page books commemorating the lives of the close to 12,000 children deported by the Vichy government to the concentration camps. Of these, only 300 survived. Journalist and Nazi hunter writes their biographies so that they not be forgotten.

Lukas, R. and Lukas J. 1994 Did the Children Cry: Hitler’s war against Jewish and Polish Children. Hippocress Books. (Polish and Jewish experiences, varied documents, how Polish and Jewish children fought back in the resistance etc, $25)

Sicher. Efraim. 1998. Breaking Crystal: Writing and Memory after Auschwitz. Univ. Of Illin press.. Jewish children of survivors in U.S. and Israel describe how they experience the events in their imaginations. Addresses questions such as Whose memory is it? How is memory inscribed in literature and art of the Holocaust (Multi-disciplinary book) $ 25

Steinitz. L. ed. 1996. Living after the Holocaust: Reflections by children of survivors in America. Bloch. Publc.

Tauber, Yvonne. 1999. In the other chair: Holocaust survivors and the second generation as therapists and patients. Gefen.

Rosenthal. Gabriele. 1998. The Holocaust in three generations; Families of victims and perpetrators of the Nazi regime. Continuum International Publc. Group. (Five cases based on interviews and observations in Israel and Germany on how experiences of the Holocaust have impacted on the second generation -Israeli and German researchers. $55).

Wardi, Dina. 1992. Memorial Candles: Children of the Holocaust. Tavistock press. Psychotherapist describes how therapy helps children of survivors achieve self integration, deal with identity disturbances, and pre-occupation with death.

F. Youth Audience Books:

Anflick, Charles. Resistence: Teen partisans and resisters who fought Nazi tyranny. (Series of youth books includes also “In the Ghetto”, In the Camps,”)

Mochizuki, Ken, 1997. Passage to Freedom:The Suzichara Story New York. Lee and Low books. (Japanese official in Lithuania, with his family’s support, but against governmental orders gave out visas and saved thousands of Jews in front of the German advance during World War II. Told from his young son’s perspective).

Rubin, Susan, 2000. Fireflies in the dark: The story of Frieidl Dickes-Brandeis and the children of Terezin. Holiday House. (An artist involves children in artwork during the Terezin camp experience) Spiegelman, Art 1986. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale vol I. Random House (Cartoon representation of the story of the Nazis and impact on adult son)

G. Background materials not focused specifically on child survivors:

The Holocaust in Romania: The destruction of Jews and Gypsies under the Antonescu Regime 1940-1944. Roduloaned. 1999. (One chapter on gypsies, the rest on Jews)

Biesold, Horst, 1999. Crying Hands: Eugenics and deaf people in Nazi Germany. Gallaudet Univ. Press. (Interviews with 1000 deaf survivors of Law for Prevention of Offspring and Hereditary Diseases. Describes collaboration of teachers).

Engel, David, 1993. Facing the Holocaust: The Polish government in exile and the Jews. University of North Carolina Press. (Author suggests that anti-semitism of Sikorski government was counterbalanced by belief in the power of U.S. Jewry).

Friendlander, Henry. 1997. Origins of Nazi genocide. University of North Carolina Press. (Author argues that German citizen acceptance of persecution of the handicapped paved the way for later persecution of Jews, Gypsies and others. Chapter on murder of 5000 handicapped children). $19

Hoffman, Eva. 1997. Shtetl: Life and Death of a small town and the world of Polish Jews. Houghton Mifflin.

Hegen, Heinz, 1985. The man with the pink triangle: The true life and death stories of Homosexuals in the Nazi death camps. Alyson pub.